


Teach Your Children Well

by westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist



Category: The West Wing
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/M, First Time, Friendship, Humor, Hurt/Comfort, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-07-16
Updated: 2007-07-16
Packaged: 2019-05-15 13:53:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,462
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14791742
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist/pseuds/westwingfanfictioncentral_archivist
Summary: Aisling, Deborah, Fiona, and Hogan get drunk





	Teach Your Children Well

**Author's Note:**

> A copy of this work was once archived at National Library, a part of the [ West Wing Fanfiction Central](https://fanlore.org/wiki/West_Wing_Fanfiction_Central), a West Wing fanfiction archive. More information about the Open Doors approved archive move can be found in the [announcement post](http://archiveofourown.org/admin_posts/8325).

  
Author's notes:

CJ/Danny, CJ/OMC, Danny/OFC, alternate universe and fantasy (or is it?)

Rating Adult

Spoilers through end of series

Not mine, never were, never will be, but they consume my soul

Feedback and criticism always welcomed

This picks up right after \"Fathers and Sons\"

* * *

_Mid-July, 2014; Albion, CA_

Paul wrapped up the last of the fish bones in newspaper and sealed them in a plastic bag before putting them in the metal trash can. Hopefully, no woodland critters would come after them. The fishing trip earlier in the day had been quite productive, in terms of both the number of fish caught and the companionship and bonding it engendered among his father-in-law, his two sons, and himself.

His only regret is that he didn’t think to take a camera with them. There were so many memories captured in his mind; if only they could have been preserved on disk or film. He would have to try really hard to describe for CJ the sight of Joe leaning in the crevice of an old split redwood, his head thrown back in slumber, his left arm around a sleeping Paddy curled up on his lap, while squirrels nibbled at the sandwich that was loosely held in his right hand.

“Dad?” He looked up from his trash-wrapping duties. Derrick was standing, two open bottles of beer in his hand. “Could we talk?”

He took one of the bottles from his son. “Now what kind of a question is that?” he asked easily, glancing over toward the deck where Deborah and CJ were telling Joe about their trip to Fort Bragg. Paddy had fallen asleep, his head in CJ’s lap.

Paul and Derrick sat down on logs arranged around the fire pit.

“I’m sure not how to begin; it may be too personal, off limits.” It was unusual for his son to be so hesitant. “I’m not sure how to ask or if I even should.”

"Haven't I always said you could ask me anything?”

Derrick tood a deep breath. “Will you teach me how to make love to a woman?”

“Son, between those Trojans in your nightstand and what you told your grandfather and me about Gillian this morning, I think you know -”

“I know how to have sex. I don’t know how to put the look I see on CJ’s face on a woman’s face, how to give someone the sense of comfort and security I sense in her. I want to be able to give what I see in her, what, looking back, I saw in Mom. I’m not wanting to be lurid, to overstep bounds, to uncover your nakedness, as it were, but – I mean, did you always know what to do, is it just instinctive?”

Paul did what he often did when presented with an uncomfortable idea; he stepped back and tried to analyze, to see the possibilities. He had taught his son so many things about being a man: how to shave, how to handle tools, how to drive, how to dance, how to be a gentleman. So why should teaching your son how to fulfill a vital part of being a man be such an awkward idea? True, in doing so, he would have to admit to his son that his mother, and now his stepmother, were sexual beings, but it could be done in a manner that was not disrespectful of them. In fact, to deny that these women were sexual beings is what would be disrespectful.

Now it was his turn to take a deep breath.

“Well, Derrick, first of all, you don’t make love **to** a woman, you make love **with** her. She has to be a willing participant, has to be comfortable with whatever the two of you are doing. Now some things may take time, she may at first be uncomfortable with a particular thing, like oral sex, but later, as she grows to trust you, may welcome it; and some things she may never feel good about doing. It’s the same with you. If she wants to try something and you don’t like it, tell her so, but keep an open mind.

“Second, I would venture that about half, if not more, of that sense of comfort, security, and relaxed satisfaction comes from being secure in the feeling of being loved, being cherished, being valued, and being respected. You can have the best physical technique in the world, but if you don’t let her know that you are going to be part of each other’s lives, no matter what, it won’t mean squat. And if you do anything to tear her down in front of others, to let others think she is less than the most precious thing in your universe, to let them think they can get away with not treating her with respect, nothing you do in bed will ever compensate for it.

He looked up and noticed that CJ was smiling at him.

“But most important, you need to put her first. We’ll continue this later.” He got up, walked over to his wife, listened to her, kissed her, and took the sleeping child from her lap. The two of them walked into the house together.

Later that evening, relaxing in post-coital comfort, he told her what Derrick had asked of him. “So, do I give him explicit information about technique?”

“As long as you don’t expect me to be your demonstration mannequin.” She moved against him suggestively. “But maybe you better go over your technique again, so it’s fresh in your mind.”

“Perhaps I **should** get in some practice,” his mouth came down on her breast.

Afterward, they were again lying in sated satisfaction.

“CJ, are you sure it doesn’t bother you that Derrick asked -”.

“I’m sure," she yawned. "Go get yourself an anatomy book and teach him everything you know. However, if and when Paddy asks -”.

“With any luck, he’ll ask Derrick.”

_The next night_

CJ softly moaned as she reveled in the magic of her husband’s fingers on her core, the solid feel of his chest against her back, his soft kisses on the back of her neck, and his constant movement within her. As if pulled by gravity, she slowly rotated from her side to her stomach so that she was lying face down on the bed. Paul followed suit, not breaking contact and was lying on top of her.

In a few minutes, she climaxed, his hand still helping her. He lifted his torso and, bracing himself on his arms, brought himself to satisfaction quickly thereafter, then gently lowered himself again over her back.

As he came back to normalcy, Paul thought to himself that he had never experienced something quite like he had this evening. It was as if CJ were the most precious, most delicate, most vulnerable thing in the universe and that he needed to love her in order to protect her and that he needed to protect her in order to love her.

“Sweetheart, I can’t begin to tell you how wonderful that was.” He kissed her neck again.

“Hhmm.” She moaned in agreement.

And then he felt the difference in her, a sense of withdrawing, of mental separation. He lifted himself from her body and gently turned her so that she was facing him. He held her against his side, her head against her heart, and stroked her hair.

After a few minutes, he kissed her and asked, “Do you want to talk about it?” and listened as she told him that the position they had just used had been something she and Danny had discovered, that she had never been that way with another man. She told him what Danny had told her about molting crabs, about vulnerability and trust.

He remembered what he had told Derrick the previous night, that if a woman wasn't comfortable with a particular act, then you had to back away from it. He reflected that there was nothing he had ever done with Alicia, physically, that he felt uncomfortable doing with CJ. Other than buying her camisoles and tap pants, he amended. But in bed, he had done just about everything with CJ first, except for that thing with kissing down the spine while using his fingers inside. He had just been to a truly special place, and now may never get to be there again.

“Sweetheart, I understand. If you want to keep that between you and Danny, we don’t have to do it again.”

_“I don’t mind, CJ. I really don’t.”_

_Danny looked over to where Alicia was sitting with Cosmas, Damian, and Danielle. She was holding Theo and Leslie, the two babies she had miscarried four and five years, respectively, after the twins. He wondered if she was okay with Paul doing that spine and butt thing with CJ._

_“Come on, boy,” he whistled to Pistol. “Let’s go get the others and then go over to Venus for some barbeque!”_

CJ kissed him and told him that the problem was that she liked it, she wanted to do it again with him. She just had to come to grips with it in her head.

“Then I’ll leave it to you to let me know when, ladylove. But may I tell Derrick about it?”

Her kiss on his chest was all the assent he needed.

They talked about the events of the day, the phone calls they had received from Ireland and from San Diego.

Brendan Collins, his brother, and his nephews were going to northern Canada to canoe through the backwoods. Fiona and Aisling would like to visit with their aunt during that male-bonding exercise. Erin was champing at the bit at the thought of caring for little Ciara, who was just a little younger than Caitlin. Would it be convenient for them to come the day after tomorrow? (“Of course,” Paul said. “We’d love to see you. CJ will be so happy when she returns from the store and I tell her.") Then Hogan called. Her husband was somewhere under one of the oceans and she was feeling a little lonely.

“We’d love to have you.”

“Thanks, Paul.”

Derrick and Paddy were more than glad to give up their beds in the little loft to the Irish sisters. Derrick suggested that “the brothers” take a camping trip in the nearby state park. CJ wasn’t quite ready to let her son sleep in the open and so they compromised on having the two of them use the pop-up tent camper. Derrick took the two of them into town to buy air mattresses and sleeping bags. (On the way back, Paddy asked Derrick, “Can we still cook breakfast over a fire even if we can’t take a bath in the river?”)

They would put Hogan in the upstairs bedroom with Deborah and move Caitlin into their room. Joe offered to take in the tot in him, but they said it would be no problem to have Caitlin with them.

“So we’ll have a full house,” Paul summarized, holding CJ tighter against him.

She could feel his arousal stirring against her. She reached down to encourage him.

“Then in case it gets too crowded, we better start deflating my pregnancy libido.”

_Three days later_

Paul woke to the sound of female voices on the deck. He looked over at the bedside clock; it was 1:45 in the morning. He didn’t get bad headaches very often, but when he did, the only thing that helped was sleep. Tonight, he had sleeping for five hours.

Then he felt the slight chill that signaled to him that he was alone in the bed. Then he heard the voices coming in from the deck.

“Okay, lesh have another roun.” He identified the giggle as Hogan’s.

“Souns” hick “good to me.” That from his daughter.

The next sound he heard was that of the screen door opening and closing.

“If you aren’t going to bed anytime soon, try to keep it down. If you woke me, you could wake the others, especially Derrick and Paddy. Good Lord, the four of you have finished off two bottles!” Aisling and Fiona had brought with them six bottles of the MacDonald Distillery’s special, private pot-still whiskey, secreted under the label of a competitor’s “so-so” product.

So that’s where his wife was. He had been sure he had felt her joining him on the bed a few hours ago.

“Then we’ll just get me lovely sister ta make us s’more. Ye’ll do it for us, Aisling, love?” Fiona MacDonald Collins’ brogue apparently thickened in direct proportion to the amount of alcohol in her system.

“Not here, not tonight.” Aisling sounded sober, but then he remembered being told that she could manage her liquor better than most people. Several times these past two days, he noticed that although she was the youngest of the four young women, she was often the most mature and levelheaded.

Ah, well, at least they were all here at the house and not at one of the bars on the coast road. There would be no one trying to drive home in a state of inebriation; there would be no one fighting off an amorous (or dangerous) male. The worst thing that could happen would be the hangovers they might have tomorrow. Whether or not there would be any whiskey left to take back to Berkeley was another matter.

At times, Paul felt like he was in a sorority house, but it was fun having so many people for a few days. Derrick joked that he wasn’t sure that he and his brother could deal with all the extra women, but Paul begged to differ. As Joe said, as long as you could appreciate looking at beautiful young women, you weren’t really an old man.

“So, anyway, I look up and see these three little boys staring at Jim and me and I scream. Poor Jim just deflated right away and then when he saw the kids, he yelled at them, got up, and tripped over a log. So my first time ended with me having to help the guy to the car and then driving him to the ER for his ankle.” Hogan laughed. “So, that was my first time. Ash? What about you?”

Apparently, the young women were discussing their first sexual experiences. He really shouldn’t eavesdrop, but other than getting up and closing the window, there was nothing he could do about it.

“Me baby sister hasna crossed that threshold, yet. She’s been holding off wee Brian for about three months now. Even after he showed her that they weren’t too close, kinwise.”

Apparently, Aisling was being courted by her second cousin once removed, the son of the woman who had bequeathed Danny the property that provided the money for this little retreat in northern California.

“I told him I’m not ready and he said he’s willing to wait.”

That’s the type you want, Paul silently told the young girl who looked so much like Danny Concannon.

“Well, when you’re ready, make sure he makes it nice for you, not like what Hogan and I had.” This from his daughter. “A girl’s first time should be much nicer.”

Her words took him back almost five years.

_November 27, 2009; Washington, DC_

Paul unlocked the door to the brownstone he was renting and automatically stepped back, allowing his children to enter first. They had spent the morning in a private tour of the White House with Margaret Hooper, the President’s Deputy Chief of Staff. After lunch, they went to the Capitol, where they were given another private tour that had been also been arranged by CJ and Danny’s friends.

“I don’t know about you two, but I need a nap,” Derrick said as he hung up his coat.

“Me, too,” his sister added.

“Deborah, honey?” Paul called to his daughter.

“Yes, Daddy?”

“After you rest, why don’t you come talk with me? I’ll be in the study, tweaking my sermon.” He smiled at the girl.

“Uh, okay.”

He could sense the hesitation. His instincts weren’t wrong. Something was bothering his not so little girl. She would seem somewhat distant and then, as if realizing it, would be too bright, too happy. Also, she had lost weight since August, about 30 pounds, he guessed. She was thin to the point of gauntness. During the tour of the White House earlier today, she seemed distracted and tired. Even the surprise meeting with Mrs. Santos and the Santos children, home early from Camp David, didn’t seem to excite her.

Ninety minutes later, he was satisfied with the words he would preach Sunday. It would be the first Sunday of Advent, the beginning of the new church year. He had stolen a page from his Catholic colleagues and would be encouraging his congregation to not celebrate Christmas too early, to make good use of this period of anticipation.

“Daddy? You wanted to see me?” Deborah stood at the door to the study.

He got up from the desk and sat on the love seat. “Come in, sweetheart, and shut the door.”

When his daughter had complied and turned to face him, he smiled at her and asked, “Baby, what’s wrong?”

“Daddy, nothing’s wrong. I mean, it’s been a little harder this year. I might have scheduled a bit more than I could handle, but I’m working hard at my -”.

“Deborah.” Quietly, but firmly, he let her know that she was not fooling him.

She took a couple of steps toward the loveseat then stopped. She looked at her feet.

“I’m late.”

God help him, it was on the tip of his tongue to ask “For what?”, but he managed to catch himself. Instead, he opened his arms to her and she rushed over, sat on his lap, and, laying her head on his shoulder, began to cry, her shoulders shaking with the sobs.

He enclosed her in his arms and stroked her hair, not saying anything, wishing that he could make it better the way he did when she was seven or eight and someone had hurt her feelings or she had lost her favorite doll.

“I” gulp “was so” gulp “afraid of what” gulp “you would -”.

“Afraid?” He pulled back to look at her and she could see the beginnings of hurt in his eyes. “Honey, what did you think I would do, or not do? Haven’t I always told you -” he sighed and hugged her tighter, kissing the side of her head.

_“I remember having to tell your father that I was pregnant,” Bernice Dawson told her daughter. “I know how afraid she is. And then I had to tell my parents. No matter how many times they’ve told you how much they love you, it’s terrifying.”_

_“My poor baby.” Alicia sat next to her mother, their spiritual hearts breaking for the young woman who had just found the courage to tell her father of her fears._

“How late are you?”

“About three weeks.”

“And you haven’t done a test?”

“I kept hoping. I was afraid. I’m stupid,” she smiled weakly.

“You are **not** stupid -”

“I may have **done** something stupid, but I am not stupid.” She finished the gentle reprimand she had heard from her father so many times in the past, kissing his cheek.

“So why don’t we go to the drugstore and find out. Once we know for a fact that you're pregnant, we can start talking about where we go from there.” Seeing the hesitant look on her face, he remembered the public service ad about fatherhood from a few years ago where the dad goes into the convenient store to buy sanitary napkins for his teen-age daughter because the clerk is a young boy. “Okay, **I’ll** go buy the test for you,” he smiled at her and nudged her to get her to move off his lap.

So he went to the drugstore and, not knowing anything about the various tests, talked to the pharmacist. When the woman gave him a look, he said, “She’s a bit shy about it”, and the pharmacist, seeing his wedding ring, assumed that “she” meant “my wife”. Paul didn’t disabuse her of the notion. The lie of omission didn’t bother him; it was none of the store’s business. The pharmacist suggested two tests, so he bought both.

When one test said “no” and the other said “yes”, he placed a call to Carol. He knew she would be discreet. Carol called her doctor and the next day, Paul accompanied his daughter to the doctor’s office. When the doctor asked about testing her for HIV and other STDs, Deborah gulped, looked at her father, and nodded her head. She signed the paperwork to allow the doctor to give the results to her father since she would be back at school Sunday night. The doctor suggested that she “follow up with Student Health when she was back in Oxford.” Then he sent her with his nurse to get ready for the examination.

After the exam, Deborah joined her father in the doctor’s office again. The man told them she wasn’t pregnant. In all likelihood, her missed period was due to her ultra-thinness; she had lost so much weight it affected her hormonal balance. She needed to gain at least 20 pounds. A woman with her bone structure and muscle mass should be wearing size eight, not size two.

Later that evening, Paul talked with her again, this time about the emotional pitfalls of sexual intimacy, even when just “hooking up”. Again, she crawled onto his lap and just sat there, letting him hold her.

After a few minutes of holding her in silence, he asked, “Do you want to talk about it?”

She told him that she had gone to all the Homecoming activities in October with this boy she had started seeing at the beginning of the school year. By Saturday night, at the party, she had been drinking, off and on, for two days, and she and the boy had a lapse in judgment. Under her father's gentle questioning she said that, no, she was not a victim of date rape and no, he did not get her drunk in order to seduce her. She and the boy were equally responsible for what happened and she wasn’t going to blame him because neither of them thought about using a condom.

He made some comment about her not being in a position to judge her degree of responsibility, of not being prepared for the event, of entering new territory.

She took a deep breath. “Daddy, I had condoms in my purse. It wasn’t my first time.” She lowered her eyes, afraid of seeing disappointment in his, and continued talking, if only because she wasn’t ready to hear what he was thinking of her. “The day after our senior prom, a bunch of us spent the next day and evening at Buckeye Lake. One minute Mark and I were just talking and necking, and the next minute, we were in the back of his Corolla and, well, it happened. Afterward, a policeman knocked on the window, yelled at us, told us that he could have been a pervert, or worse, and made us get dressed and leave.” She buried her face in his shoulder.

If he had been there for her and Derrick, instead of halfway around the world, wallowing in his grief, he would never have allowed them to go out with the group on the day after the prom. He would have known that they had been up all night, albeit in a supervised prom and after-prom party, and that their tired minds and bodies would be susceptible to things they might not choose to do under other circumstances. Two days after the prom, no problem, he would have told them, but on that day after the all-night event, he would have wanted them at home, sleeping off the party. Or he would have hosted a chaperoned picnic for the group. He didn’t fault the twin’s aunt and uncle for allowing them to go out; he was sure that most of the parents felt there was safety in numbers. They didn’t have the statistics available to them as he did.

He stroked her hair again. “Oh, Deborah.”

“I know” gulp “you’re disappointed in me, that I should have waited. I’m sorry.”

“Disappointed in you? No, sweetie. In the first place, it would be hypocritical of me to criticize you when I was only a little older myself when I first, well, -”

“But Mom -”

“Your mother made a deathbed promise to your great-grandmother. If she hadn’t been trapped into that promise -”

“You think Mom would have, in high school?”

“I don’t know about that. But I do know that once I knew that I loved her, that I wanted her in my life, if she hadn’t made that promise, I would not have been as noble as I was. And I can be pretty persuasive when I want to be,” he laughed lightly. “No, baby, what I mean is, it should have been nicer. A girl’s first time, or a boy’s, for that matter, you should have had a bed with clean sheets, real privacy, a nice room with a door that locks, and, depending on the time of day or year, soft lights or candles, or a fireplace. Maybe some champagne. That’s what I’m sad about, the fact that it was in the back of a compact car, that you were interrupted by a third party. It should have been nicer.” Then he told her that first times with a man, even though she was now longer a virgin, should also be nice, that she deserved it, and that, if the boy deserved her, he also deserved it. He told her that when it was right between a man and a woman, the others didn't matter, had no bearing on the relationship.

_“And if she had waited, she would have had nice, like you did, Alicia.” Esther Dawson joined her daughter-in-law and her granddaughter. “So would have you.” She looked pointedly at Bernice. Esther still wasn’t sure about this woman who had lured her Joe with her body. Sure, Joe got his degree from Penn State and then his doctorate from Vanderbilt. But maybe, without Bernice to support, he could have gone to Harvard. She winced at the little pinprick to her side and remembered that she had had to spend an extra month in Purgatory for the same thoughts when she first came to Heaven. Thank Them, once here, you were here for good._

_“We’ve had this discussion too many times,” Alicia laughed. “Let’s get ready for the choirs of angels concert. Meemaw, why don’t you wear your peach outfit?" Her grandmother looked stunning in a coat dress, cloche hat, gloves, purse, and heels all dyed to match. "And, Mother, you would look nice in turquoise.” The single-breasted suit, wide-brimmed hat, and accessories were typical of the ensembles she remembered seeing on her mother on Sunday mornings._

_Bernice looked at her daughter. “Child, why can’t you wear a skirt? And a hat?” She stared at the sea green pantsuit that appeared on Alicia._

_“That’s another discussion that has been overdone.”_

Right before Deborah came home for Christmas, Paul called her to let her know that she was negative on the tests, thank God, but that the doctor would want the tests repeated in a few months. She stammered a little when he asked her if she had seen the school doctor about contraception, but said yes. And since that time, he knew, without her saying anything, that she had been more careful, more selective. He knew for sure that there had been one other guy at Miami, her senior year, but these past two years at Columbia, he was pretty sure she hadn’t been involved with anyone.

_Mid-July, 2014; Albion, CA_

“Well, like I said, Brian claims he’s willing to wait until I’m ready, so hopefully, he’ll also be prepared in the romantic setting area,” Aisling laughed.

“Aunt CJ, what about you?” Fiona’s husky voice came over his sister’s lighter one. “Tell us about the guy that popped your -”

He winced at the crude slang as much as at the all too personal, all too close to home subject.

“I prefer to keep those memories to myself.” He could hear the restrained, but amused joy in her voice, could imagine the smile on her face. She probably didn’t even know it was there.

“Well, **he** had to be good, and **it** had to be good, look at the way she’s smiling!” Hogan added. “Come on, Aunt CJ, give it up!”

“Yes, tell us!” That last from his daughter.

“Ah, Deborah, I really don’t -”.

He could only imagine the look on Deborah’s face as she figured it out. “Omagod! It was **Daddy**! You were a sophomore in college. Wow, you were old!”

“Yeah, Aunt CJ”, Hogan added, “I would have figured you for junior year high school at the outside.”

Not that old, he thought to himself. CJ had skipped a grade and was a little over two month’s shy of eighteen when she entered Berkeley. That made her not quite nineteen that Friday night - .

“Now ye **have** to tell us, Aunt CJ! Gie us all the details!” This from Fiona, of course.

“So you can spend tomorrow looking at him and smirking?” Aisling laughed at her sister.

“Hell, yes!” Hogan answered.

"I think I know too much already," Deborah said.

He hoped that the women would not be repeating this drinking party every night. Lord knows what subjects they would cover in other sessions.

“I don’t have to do anything. And I think it’s time you all got to bed!” He could hear CJ begin to gather the glasses and walk toward the house.

A few minutes later, the girls got up from the table. He heard them giggling as they went upstairs and then the sound of his bedroom door opening and closing.

CJ removed her robe and slipped into bed. “So will you be able to not look embarrassed in front of your daughter tomorrow?” She rose over him and kissed his mouth.

“I’m pretty sure that she’s the one who will be embarrassed in the morning, assuming any of them get out of bed before noon. And how did you know I woke up and overheard?” He returned the kiss.

“I could sense it. How’s your headache?”

“All gone.” He reached under the T-shirt she was wearing (his) and lifted it over her head. As his lips traced a line from her collarbone and between her breasts, his hand pushed her underwear past her knees to her ankles, and she kicked the garment off her feet.

She brought one leg over to the other side of him and raised herself, preparing to take him inside her. However, he gently pushed her toward the side, indicating that he wanted her beneath him. When she resisted, he pushed even harder. She was surprised. Although he usually took the lead when they made love with each other, he always seemed glad when she decided to initiate and direct the activity. He was not one of those men who felt threatened by being on the bottom. They could be doing it with him hanging upside down from the ceiling, she thought, and he would still be confident and secure in his masculinity. .

“In a month or so, we won’t be able to; it won’t be comfortable for you this way, sweetheart. Then you can ride on top all you want. But tonight, hearing the girls asking you, it brought back memories I want to relive while we still can. Please?”

Looking into his face, filled with love for her, she smiled, rolled onto her back, and opened her thighs to his hand. And when he came over her, she lifted her legs and wrapped them around him as she had done that night so long ago, the night he made so nice, so special.

Afterward, she lay in his arms, head on his shoulder.

“It’s funny how everyone just assumed you had been a wild and crazy high-school kid.” He reached down to kiss her eyes. “And when Deborah figured it out, I half-expected to hear a big ‘Yeeew!’ from her mouth.”

“Actually, on the way in, she whispered to me, ‘Just between the two of us, I can’t imagine my father being less than totally excellent at **anything** he does. It would be out of character.’ So now both your kids think of you as Super-Stud.”

“Well, then I better live up to their opinions,” he said as they began again.


End file.
